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'Cult of average' holding back schoolchildren

The UK's education system is fostering a "cult of the average", failing to help the brightest youngsters, or those most in need, business leaders have warned.

In a damning indictment, the CBI said that
too many children fall behind and never catch up, and that in some cases,
secondary schools have become little more than exam factories.

Decades of "patchwork" reforms
have confused schools, encouraged a tick box culture that has put off teachers
and resulted in a narrow focus on exams and league tables, the UK's biggest
business group said.

In a new report, the CBI calls for a major
overhaul to ensure that all children can succeed.

It recommends radical changes, such as
reducing the importance of GCSEs and making A-levels the main exam for school
leavers, and moving away from league tables in favour of Ofsted reports.

"The education system fosters a cult
of the average: too often failing to stretch the most able or support those
that need most help," the CBI said.

CBI director-general John Cridland said
while businesses want school leavers to have a rigorous education, they also
want it to be "rounded and grounded".

"Today we have a system where, sadly,
a large minority of our young people fall behind," he said.

"They fall behind and never catch up.
It's not the fault of any individual concerned. It's not the fault of children,
parents or teachers.

"It's a system failure. It's not
acceptable any more than it's not acceptable that the top 10% are not stretched
enough."

The report, published on the day that the
CBI meets for its annual conference in central London, says that the UK's
schools have faced "35 years of piecemeal reforms".

While international studies show a slight
rise in average pupil performance, this hides "a long tail of low
achievement with children falling behind long before they reach secondary
school".

Mr Cridland said that the focus on exams
and league tables "has produced a conveyor belt, rather than what I would
want education to be, an escalator".

The education system "moves children
along at a certain pace, but does not deal well with individual needs",
the report says.

Often, rather than being used as a measure
of a child's achievement, exams have become "a tool for assessing school
performance", Mr Cridland said.

As the school leaving age is being raised
from 16 to 18 in England over the next few years, the CBI suggests that it is
time to move away from GCSEs and focus on A-levels.

Its report calls for pupils to be able to
take tough, academic A-levels alongside new vocational A-levels.

Instead of GCSEs there would be assessments
at ages 14 or 16 that check pupils' progress and help them decide what subjects
or career paths to take.

Mr Cridland said he did not think GCSEs,
or another exam at 16, would be axed, but that it may be used for a different
purpose.

"I think there will be exams at 16,
it's whether they are considered summative, or testing to keep performance
moving forward," he said.

He also suggested: "This generation
of young people are as streetwise as any, but sometimes in the education system
we're not always bottling that.

"In some cases secondary schools have
become an exam factory. Qualifications are important, but we also need people
who have self-discipline and serve customers well."

The report says there should be a shift
away from league tables to Ofsted reports that assess not only academic
performance, but the other skills young people need in life.

Teachers should also have more freedom to
tailor their teaching to the needs of individual pupils.

Mr Cridland said that today's technology
allows much more to be done in the classroom.

"You can have Brian Cox beamed onto a
whiteboard to teach science interactively," he suggested.

He added: "In years gone by you had
one teacher, doing his best with chalk and talk in front of 30 kids, in the
1950s, there was no alternative."

Now there are laptops, tablets and
whiteboards and much more that can be done," he said.

Mr Cridland said that teachers need to be
"liberated" to allow them to teach creative lessons.

"The best teachers we've talked to
are rebels against the system," he said.

"They have to break out of the
straightjacket of the curriculum which has stopped them delivering the sort of
education our young people need."

Ministers have announced plans to scrap
GCSEs and replace them with new English Baccalaureate Certificates in English,
maths and science.

Reviews of A-levels and the national
curriculum are also under way.

Mr Cridland said: "Government reforms
are headed in the right direction, but are not sufficient on their own. They
need to go further and they need to go faster."

A Department for Education spokesperson
said: "No school should settle for second best - and every one of our reforms
is designed to drive up standards so all children have a first-class education.

"The CBI rightly recognises the
importance of English and maths, calls for greater rigour in the curriculum and
in exams, welcomes the academy programme, wants a new accountability system and
backs greater freedom for teachers.

"These are all part of the
Government's radical package of reforms that will give England's education
system the thorough overhaul it needs."

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the
Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: "This report
should not be used as yet another opportunity to denigrate hardworking and
committed school leaders. The emphasis should be on working together to further
develop a good and improving education service and creating the policy
framework to make that happen.

"ASCL particularly welcomes the
recommendation that there needs to be a clear and widely owned statement of the
outcomes that all schools should deliver and a recognition that this needs to
go far beyond academic achievement.

"We wholly agree with the CBI's view
that the accountability framework focuses far too much on statistics relating
to institutional performance, as opposed to learning outcomes for individuals,
which leads to an unhealthy focus on threshold indicators."

Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg
said: "This report illustrates that the Government is failing to do enough
to prepare young people for the world of work and to succeed in life. That
requires a focus on the kinds of skills and knowledge that employers need -
both vocational and academic. But this report suggests that the Government's
planned EBacc Certificates are the wrong approach.

"When business leaders say his
approach to education is wrong, Michael Gove looks seriously out of touch.

"There are a number of
recommendations which support Labour's policies. It confirms that Michael Gove
has focused on the wrong thing by spending two years tinkering with exams at
16, rather than offering all young people the skills and knowledge they need
when they leave education at 18.

"The report endorses Labour's plans
for all students to study English and maths until 18.

"All Michael Gove is proposing is to
offer re-sits. With Labour, all young people will continue to study these
subjects, regardless of their previous attainment, up to 18. Without this, we
cannot expect our young people to compete in a global economy."